The Azerbaijani-Russian pop star who initiated the controversial 2016 Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign officials has dismissed allegations he was acting as a Kremlin agent, saying the claims are ludicrous.
“I have been accused of influencing — this is gonna sound very strange — influencing the American election. Me, this guy here from Azerbaijan, living in Moscow. Because I know personally Mr. Donald Trump,” Emin Agalarov told Vice News in an interview published Tuesday. “It’s quite a strange and ridiculous accusation.”
Emin Agalarov said he asked his publicist Rob Goldstone to broker the meeting with Trump associates and Russian government-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in the lead-up to the 2016 election after “somebody” made the request of his wealthy real estate investor father Aras Agalarov. He added that he had reached out to Trump Jr. prior to the meeting, an assertion Trump Jr. could not recall while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to transcripts released in May.
Agalarov and his father, Aras Agalarov, paid President Trump $20 million to bring the 2013 Miss Universe pageant to Moscow, Russia, according to Vice. They also agreed to host the show, as well as attempted to extend an invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He said, ‘Let’s invite Mr. Putin to the pageant,’” Emin Agalarov told Vice. “Which, we tried doing it, but [Putin] couldn’t come because he had [the] king of some country visiting and was unable.”
It was against the backdrop of the pageant that Trump allegedly hired prostitutes to urinate on the hotel bed once slept in by former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, an incident mentioned in the unverified Trump-Russia dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
Agalarov, however, over the course of the Vice interview pushed back on rumors he offered to send prostitutes to Trump’s hotel room and claimed to be unaware of any such offer being made.
Agalarov made headlines in June when he released a music video clip that mocked the alleged “pee tape” by showcasing an actor dressed as Trump partying with Miss Universe contestants in a hotel bedroom.
The Trump Tower meeting has been a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
